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Fri, 02 Mar 2007

I heart my guitars

Those of you who've seen The Schmoejoes know my '64 Silvertone 1446L is the coolest guitar ever made. Thanks to my talented luthier pal Bobby Nelson, I now have another, the '60 Silvertone 1427L! Here's a pic of the gals together. :) Beautiful.

The Silvertone 1446L (on the left) is a thinline hollow-body guitar, and one of the few that came stock with a Bigsby tremolo. One of the nifty things about this guitar are the angled pickup surrounds - these were unique to this model.

The Silvertone 1427 is a big jazz-box style guitar, reminiscent of the Gretsch guitars of the era. Unlike the 1446, it has no block supporting the plywood top - due to this, some of these guitars' tops have sunken somewhat over the years. There was another model identical to the 1427, the Espanada. The Espanada had an aluminum binding and a fancier tailpiece, which you can see here. You'll notice that in addition to the aluminum 'Espanada' on the headstock, there is another 'Espanada' badge on the upper bout. I don't believe 'Silvertone' or 'Harmony' appear anywhere on the guitar.

I bought my 1427 a few years ago, and due to the issues it had (coming up), it's spent most of the time hiding in its case.

Harmony made both these guitars for Sears, who used the Silvertone name for many of their instruments and amps. Commonly, they are referred to by their Harmony model numbers: H1446 & H64 respectively. Harmony didn't sell a black Harmony-branded version of the 1427 that I know of, however, I have seen a few examples of Harmony-branded 1446 guitars with twin cutaways.

To my knowledge, these two guitars were the only ones to come stock with actual Gibson pickups - mini-humbuckers in the 1446L, and P-13 single-coil pickups in the 1427L. The P-13s were predecessors to the P-90 single-coil pickup.

Unfortunately, my 1427 was suffering from microphonic pickups, which made it useless for plugging in. Bobby yanked the pickups, potted them (which is the process of dipping in wax to keep the wee little wires from moving around and resonating), and popped them back in.

'Wow', is all I can say! What a difference! I'm able to crank up the volume, and hear this thing sing. If you live around the Twin Cities/Southern Minnesota area, and have some guitar problems, get ahold of Bobby - he'll help you out, and your guitar.

If you're a fan of Silvertones, come see The Schmoejoes - I'll be playing them!

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